Scapula, Skin, Bottom of the Back
by Tendency
Summary: I'm going to die someday, you know. -RanxGingetsu, vignette collection, follow up of sorts to What of the Three Leaf.-


**Summary:** I'm going to die someday, you know.  
**Rating:** PG  
**Pairings:** Ran/Gingetsu.  
**Type:** One shot.  
**Disclaimer:** You all know the jazz.  
**Suggested Listening:** Nothing.

**Notes:** Long time no post, right? Nice to be back. Unfortunately I have kind of substantial backlog of fics to get through, and I'd like to go more-or-less oldest to newest, so this fic--along with a couple others that will be arriving within the next few months--is several years old. I've touched it up, of course, but I'm afraid it's just not up to my current standards in terms of content. In other words, have patience with me; there will be better stuff coming later.

Back to this, though. Here you'll find two cut pieces of dialogue from _What of the Three-Leaf_ farmed from an old journal (which I think you will agree didn't fit into its mostly-positive narrative at all), plus three other untitled drabbles that ended up fleshing out the dialogue nicely. You might call this a follow-up of sorts to _What of the Three-Leaf_, but unofficial--I mean, it's official because I wrote it, but unofficial because I don't want this to be set in stone as the only way _What of the Three-Leaf_ could have gone. There's going to be a third installment to this kind-of-series that will work much the same way. (And don't worry, it's already written, so have no fear about it never getting done. :D)

-

**Scapula, Skin, Bottom of the Back  
**- tenika

-

Scapula. Skin. Bottom of the back.

Gingetsu pulled his fingers down and stopped, pressed. Stopped. Took a breath. Then the pattern was repeated: Scapula. Skin. Bottom of the back.

Ran shuddered, abdomen clenching, hips shifting back minutely, delicately. He shifted slowly through the field of sheets, stirring the cloth into little eddies and hills, until Gingetsu thought surreptitiously of a snake uncoiling in the cold, slow and liquidly graceful, dry.

Scapula. Skin. Bottom of the back. Gingetsu pressed his fingers there, spread them out, pushed them flat against the back of first one hip, then the other, then back up again. He was waking the young man up and didn't care. This was a matter of exploration. This was more important than sleep. This was the sort of thing the other clover would immediately understand.

Ran was lithely muscled, slight and marionette. At times Gingetsu was actively ashamed of himself for touching someone so young and so damn _willing_, short times that only lasted until he looked the three-leaf in the eye and remembered that he _wasn't_ young, hadn't been young for a long time; long before their beginning, even, when he had first appeared in his child's body. He only lacked experience.

Gingetsu could give him that. He could, and more importantly, would; he knew that Ran felt as though he owed him, sometimes as much as his life, when in truth it was the opposite. Gingetsu owed the three-leaf far more than he could ever give in life.

He'd never liked living in a brick house. The foundation grew cold in the winter, and in a country and a suburb where it rained as though it would never stop, day in and day out, linear into the infinite plain of the future, that fact was only impressed. Gingetsu had never liked the cold.

Ran hadn't warmed the house. He had warmed Gingetsu, which had ultimately been far more meaningful. Coming home had stopped being lonely.

Scapula. Skin. Bottom of the back.

Gingetsu's fingers traced over Ran's bottom, and a tiny, endearingly breathless hitch of laughter slipped from the younger clover's mouth, muffled in the pillow; his shoulders squeezed lightly together, back tightening. Gingetsu smiled, brought his fingers back up and hooked one beneath a strong shoulder blade.

Ran's skin was smooth and cool and pale. Gingetsu thought that he had probably not been outside for more than a year of his whole life. He bore the colors of one who had passed their entire existence beneath electricity and false skylights.

Gingetsu could give him experience. He just had to work within a time limit.

Scapula. Skin. Bottom of the back.

-

"Do you like to pretend that I'm Kazuhiko?"

"...sometimes."

"What about the other times?"

"You're just Ran."

"So you like me, too?"

"Of course I do. Why would you think I didn't?"

"Because Kazuhiko came first."

"Yes. Then you came."

"And you like me, too."

"Yes."

-

"Do you know what my name was before?"

Ran could feel Gingetsu inhale deeply behind him. The lieutenant shifted somewhat, pressing his face to the back of Ran's neck, breathing the tail-ends of his hair. One of his hands, resting on Ran's thigh, moved slightly.

"Before you lived in the cage?" Gingetsu asked. His voice was rough and low with exhaustion, shivering along Ran's spine.

_Bendable_ was the word. He was _bendable_. Loose and warm, Ran pushed back against him, smaller shoulder blades to his chest, flexible and close. He coveted the difference in size, how small his shoulders still were in this purely physical adulthood.

Ran smiled. "No," he murmured. "I don't remember that name. I mean while I was there. With my brothers."

Gingetsu's hand moved to his stomach. Ran felt his skin flutter, nerves electric beneath the touch. "Then the answer is yes."

"What was it?"

Gingetsu paused. After several long moments Ran felt him shake his head, nose disturbing the placement of his hair. "It's not your name now," he said. "Don't try to remember it. You're Ran. I don't want anyone else here."

Ran nearly cried.

He could not describe how much this individuality meant to him, or how much more Gingetsu's constant acknowledgement of it meant. He ended up pressing his fingers to his eyes, a weak smile spreading his mouth wide and soft. "Thank you," he whispered, and Gingetsu kissed his neck in response. It was only at these times, in the middle of the night, that he moved to show this kind of affection. Ran found himself not sleeping just to find such moments.

He didn't need to say that the name only meant so much to him because Gingetsu had given it. He was sure the lieutenant knew.

-

"I'm going to die someday."

"...did the council tell you that?"

"No. I just know it. Did they tell you?"

"Yes. It was one of the last things they said after I agreed to keep you here."

"After I told you about my brother?"

"Yes."

"And why I couldn't live with him?"

"Yes."

"...and when I die, what will you do? Go back to Kazuhiko?"

"Why would you think that?"

"Because you love him. He's your best friend."

"He has Oruha."

"Not for long. She's a clover. She'll die soon, too."

"..."

"You don't need to hesitate. I don't mind. Would you?"

"Perhaps. If he'd have me."

"Good."

"Doesn't that bother you?"

"No. It makes me happy. You'll be sad when I die. He'll be able to help you. I want someone to be there when I can't."

-

One of the most frustrating things Ran had ever known in his whole life was the experience of _not_ knowing, not being able to understand or learn without aid. This morning he had been reminded very sharply of this fact, that he was both capable of incomprehension and made unhappy by its presence in his mind.

Which was why he clung in that moment to Gingetsu as though frightened to let go. He had waited by the door until the lieutenant had come back from work just for this reason, had only looked at him once before asking to be held. Gingetsu had come alone, without Kazuhiko or Oruha, and his mood must have been just right, because he wasted no time in carefully lifting Ran up by the hips until the clover could comfortably drape himself around the blond's shoulders.

He never moved past the closed door, didn't move at all except to sway very gently. Ran imagined that this must be something like sitting in a tree, and understood at last why so many children climbed them, even knowing they were all artificial.

Finally Gingetsu asked, "What's wrong?"

"I don't know anything," Ran answered, saying aloud what had been bothering him all day.

He could sense Gingetsu's confusion. "I'd disagree with that. What do you think you don't know?"

Ran sighed into the collar of his uniform, squeezing long white arms around hunter green fabric. "I don't know whether I'm happy. I can't tell."

Gingetsu was quiet for a long time upon hearing that. After a while he said, "Is it this house?"

Ran instantly saw the misconception. "No," he said firmly, "no, that's not what I mean. I could be happy right now, right this second, and still not know it. I don't know what happiness feels like. The council always told us that we couldn't be happy. I don't know what to look for."

Gingetsu's shoulders eased beneath his hands. Again, he said nothing for a long while, though Ran could tell this time that he was no longer disturbed. The three-leaf felt exceptionally guilty in the silence, understanding how what he'd said must have sounded; ungrateful, as though Gingetsu wasn't good enough. Gingetsu was everything.

Then, quietly, the lieutenant was speaking again. He said, "I don't know much about happiness. I haven't got time for it. But what I do understand..." He sighed quietly, trailing off. After a moment he tried again, saying simply, "Do you want me to put you down?"

Ran shook his head.

"Are you comfortable?"

Ran nodded.

"And if I decided to lean back against the door and stand like this all night, would you stay?"

"I would," Ran whispered. "I always would."

"Then you're happy. That is what I believe. When you stop caring about yourself in something, and all that seems to matter begins to revolve around keeping one hand on that thing that draws you. That's happiness."

Ran couldn't suppress a smile, burying it in Gingetsu's stiff uniform and nodding. "All right," he murmured into the fabric. "All right. All right. Thank you, Gingetsu."

He was happy. He hoped he was happy. He believed he was happy.

In believing, he found himself to be happy.

-

_You know I'll die someday._

**End**


End file.
